runtimebased

Runtimebased is an adjective used to describe software, architectures, or decisions that derive their behavior from information available at runtime rather than fixed at design time. The term emphasizes reliance on real-time data, context, and current system state to determine how a component acts, configures itself, or tunes its operation.

In practice, runtimebased design appears in patterns such as runtime configuration and feature flag evaluation, dynamic loading of plugins or modules, late binding or reflection-based behavior, and runtime adaptation to changing workload or environment. It often involves evaluating policies, conditions, or statistics during execution to guide decisions rather than relying solely on static code paths.

Applications of runtimebased approaches span adaptive systems, cloud and edge computing, database query optimization that considers current load, and security or compliance policies that are evaluated at execution time. They are also common in systems that require high configurability, hot-swapping components, or automatic performance tuning based on observed behavior.

Benefits include greater flexibility, responsiveness to variable conditions, and reduced need for redeployments when changing behavior. Drawbacks can include increased complexity, testing and reproducibility challenges, potential nondeterminism, and possible runtime performance overhead or security considerations from dynamic evaluation.

Related concepts encompass dynamic or adaptive systems, runtime configuration, feature flags, Just-In-Time compilation, dynamic linking, and reflection. Runtimebased approaches are often contrasted with design-time or compile-time decisions, highlighting the trade-off between stability and adaptability in software design.